Mister Monk and the Two Restaurants
by Moonside Mango
Summary: There's more than one way to solve a mystery, and more than one way to tell a story. While Monk and Natalie track an origami artist's killer, Monk and Sharona puzzle over a surgeon who appears to have drowned in his own backyard. Two cases; one murderer.
1. Tea

**Author's Note:** I had to take this down a few hours after I put it up. It needed editing. Never post a story at 4 am. Seriously.

**QUICK AND VIRTUALLY PAINLESS PREFACE:** Some people believe in the theory of multiple universes. Here's the jist of it: Say you've got a choice between chocolate and vanilla ice cream. You picked chocolate—good for you. But at the second you made that decision, some people believe an alternate universe was created. One where you picked the vanilla. And then maybe, in that other universe, you puked all over your sister's new shoes because it was a really _bad_ batch of vanilla. Who knows for sure? In this author's humble opinion, the theory's a load of bull-hookey invented by the poor jerks who wished they _had_ picked the vanilla. But let's leave quantum physics to the quantum physicists, and leave fanfic authoring to the fanfic authors.

Each chapter of this story has two parts. **Part A** and **Part B** take place at the same exact time on the same exact day of the exact same year in the same exact city. But, you know, in two totally separate parallel universes. The main difference between **A** and **B** should be pretty easy to spot. I guess I'm really writing this to answer the question of how one mystery could be solved in two totally different ways. But enough of my jabbering. Enjoy the story.

**CHAPTER 1: UNIVERSE A**

**11: 58 AM on a Wednesday Afternoon in mid-April**

Adrian Monk fidgeted ever-so-slightly in place, trying unsuccessfully to center his weight perfectly. It was getting harder and harder to gauge, because four minutes and seven seconds ago, his left foot had fallen asleep, and thirty-seven seconds later his right foot had followed suit.

He wanted nothing more than to be in the comfort of his own home, dusting the underside of his kitchen drawers. Although any activity where he could actually _feel his toes_ would have been preferable to this, he thought with a grimace.

Currently, though, he was stuck here, sitting in a kneeling position alongside five other people who were participating in a Japanese tea ceremony demonstration at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. To his immediate left sat his assistant, Natalie Teeger, and to his right, her daughter Julie. On the other side of Julie were several of her classmates—one kept wiping her nose on her jacket sleeve, and another had a very distressing piece of string trailing from the top of his left sock. Monk had tried to confront him about it already on several occasions, but had thus far been unsuccessful in convincing the lad that it was a safety hazard.

Being a chaperone on a high school field trip had never really been a high priority on his to-do list. In fact, it didn't even rank in the top thousand. But Natalie had signed him up for it—without any prior consent—when another kid's mother had come down with the flu._Come on_, she'd said, it would be _fun_, she'd said; he might just _learn_ something, she'd said. And Julie would really appreciate it, she'd said. So how could he say no?

Well, actually, he _had_ said no, very vehemently, twenty-two times. Unfortunately for him, Natalie didn't take 'no' for an answer.

So here he was, kneeling in a small rectangular room. He gave it a plus ten for cleanliness, but a minus one hundred for having a thick, hay-like odor. It was a possibility that he was only imagining the hay smell since the floor just really _looked_ like hay, but it was a minus one hundred all the same. And another minus ten simply because it wasn't where he wanted to be right now, which brought the score to a nice, even negative one hundred.

Their hostess and tour guide, Naomi, was explaining how the principals of Zen Buddhism had influenced the carefully-rehearsed tradition of the tea ceremony. He memorized the speech as she went—not that he was actually _listening._ The other participants watched respectfully and intently as she whisked a frothy, very un-tea-like substance around in a ceramic bowl. He was watching it intently too, but mostly because if he didn't, he would start to notice the walls closing in on him.

Natalie gave him a concerned sideways glance. Unbeknownst to him, he was making a face that strongly resembled that of a person who'd just bitten into a particularly unpleasant lemon. Naomi, a slim woman with dark hair and brightly-colored thick-rimmed glasses, took notice as well. She stopped mid-whisk.

"Mr. Monk," she said kindly, "You can sit with your legs crossed, you know. You don't have to kneel if it's uncomfortable for you."

"But I _do…_have to," Monk replied politely, with just a hint of_ please-god-kill-me-now _in his voice. The young museum volunteer looked at him, bewildered. He leaned forward slightly and whispered very confidentially, "Everyone else is kneeling. It wouldn't be—ah, you know," he rotated his hands around each other as if trying to get her to jump onto his train of thought.

"Um…polite?" the hostess attempted to finish his sentence.

"No!" Monk answered, aghast. "It wouldn't be even, _even_, it needs to be even. That's the Zen way...evenness in all things."

"Oh," she replied, looking even more confused than before.

Natalie, having just felt all the Zen get sucked out of the room, attempted to remedy the situation. "How about we all sit cross-legged, then?" she suggested. The kids happily complied.

All except one, a heavyset boy sitting on the end of the row. "I don't mind kneeling," he shrugged.

"Yes you do," Natalie shot back with a look of urgency. "_Sit._"

He did, thankfully, and after several awkward seconds of silence, Adrian sat as well, and Naomi resumed her duties. "So," she explained, "Now I pass the bowl to the first guest—that's you, Natalie—and you bow to accept it." Natalie, good sport that she was, did exactly as the hostess instructed.

"Like this?" the blonde asked, imitating the younger woman's pose.

"Very nice," the guide smiled gently. "Now you rotate it in your right hand and admire the ceramic. Each tea bowl is one-of-a-kind, and since you'll probably never see it again, you'll want to have a good look at it. That's it. Now you can take a sip."

With only the slightest apprehension, Natalie downed a mouthful of the green, pasty tea. Despite looking as though she'd just swallowed a whole cockroach, she remarked "It's good," though whether she was trying to convince the kids or herself was uncertain. What _was_ certain was that she wasn't very convincing.

The hostess smiled and continued with her lesson. "Now you wipe the rim of the bowl and pass it on to the next guest, who does the same exact thing you just did. Not so hard, right?"

Monk raised his hand. "Excuse me," he said apologetically. One of the kids groaned. "I'm not sure I fully understood that last part. She hands the bowl to me?"

"That's right," the hostess nodded.

"And then I turn it and look at it."

"Yes."

"And then I_ drink_ out of it?"

"Correct."

"Out of the same—the same bowl?"

"Uh-huh."

"The same bowl she just drank out of."

"That's the one."

"The same_ exact_ bowl?"

"The very same."

Julie interrupted the verbal ping-pong match. "Mr. Monk, come on," she said pleadingly.

The hostess suppressed the urge to roll her eyes. "You don't have to drink it if you don't want to, Mr. Monk."

"Oh, thank_ God_," Monk replied, looking exuberant. "Thank God," he repeated, though not as enthusiastic on the second chorus. His attentions had shifted to the rim of the bowl in Natalie's hands. "It just needs a wipe…wipe. Wipe, wipe," he extended his hand in his assistant's direction.

Snatching one wipe from Natalie's hand and another from the open package, he gingerly picked up the tea bowl using both his covered hands and proceeded to wipe the rim with gusto.

"That's the rule," he explained to the sour-faced kids as he wiped away, "She said you have to get it clean before you pass it on. You'll thank me later," he said importantly.

Everyone else in the room severely doubted it.

* * *

After the fiasco in the tearoom—which had, needless to say, not ended well—Natalie was desperate to find something to brighten the mood. Naomi had a suggestion.

"How about I take you to see the origami demonstration? We've got a guest speaker from England with us this week," she said. It seemed like a good plan.

"Her name's Madeline Davison. She spent about twelve years in Japan," Naomi explained as she hurried the kids down a long corridor. The right side of the wall was lined with Indonesian stone carvings. Monk began to tap each one as they passed, but thankfully Natalie grabbed his right arm and steered him in the other direction. Naomi, at this point, was making a conscious effort to ignore Natalie's co-chaperone.

"She's been folding origami since she was seven, so she can do some pretty amazing stuff. Scale models of buildings, flower arrangements, a thousand paper cranes, of course—"

"A_ thousand_?" asked the boy with the unraveling sock.

"That's right," said Snot-Sleeves, "We learned about that in elementary school." (Monk could only hope this young lady had a sensible mother—the kind who would have that jacket disposed of and burned immediately.)

Julie smiled. "If you make a thousand paper cranes, you get to make a wish, right?"

"That's what they say," the tour guide smiled back.

Naomi opened the door to Classroom #2 and gestured for the group to enter. They filed in quietly, some of them drifting up to have a look at the glass display cases on the wall. Each was filled with delicate paper foldings—miniature dragons, airplanes, people, plants and animals. Each one was a work of art in itself, and the sheer number of them made it all the more impressive.

The room's other two occupants were a tall, lanky Chinese fellow—also a museum volunteer—and a balding security guard. Their presence seemed to trouble Naomi a bit. She excused herself quickly and joined the huddle, speaking in a hushed tone.

"Park? Jeff? What's going on? Where's Madeline?"

"Dunno," replied the male volunteer. "She signed in at the front desk, hung out in the lobby for a while, then headed up here to arrange the display cases, but no one's heard from her since."

Natalie, meanwhile, oblivious to the other goings-on in the room, was wandering down the row of display cases admiring Madeline's work.

"Wow," she remarked offhandedly to her boss, "Who knew you could make all this stuff out of paper?"

Monk seemed less than impressed. Actually, he seemed to be just as bothered as the staff members. He had stopped at a case labeled "_1000 Paper Cranes: Myths and Messages of Peace._" The title was misleading, as the display case only had a small sampling of paper cranes—a few dozen, at most. Monk stood in front of them, looking from one to the next with a furrowed brow.

"Something's wrong," he said.

Natalie took a look at the case, though she couldn't find any fault with the display herself. "What?"

"These two cranes here," he pointed back and forth between the last two birds on the top shelf. "They're the only ones whose wings aren't folded across the center. And the two sides of the head are uneven. All of the other ones are perfect."

Natalie shrugged. "Maybe she got tired."

"I don't think so," the detective shook his head. "Look at how the tail feathers don't match up. For someone who's supposed to be an expert, there are too many inconsistencies."

"So maybe someone else folded them," Natalie suggested.

"Maybe," Monk said thoughtfully. He turned around and called over to the cluster of museum employees. "Excuse me," he asked them, "When was the last time this room was cleaned?"

"Probably not since last Friday," Park answered.

Monk nodded and turned back to his assistant. "Someone wiped down this display case very recently. It's clean."

"And that's a _bad_ thing?" Natalie raised an eyebrow at her germophobic boss.

"No," Monk was quick to reply. "But all of the other ones are dirty. They've got handprints and…and god-knows-_what_-else all over them," he added, shoulder twitching at the thought of nose prints and saliva left by previous guests.

"What does that mean?" Natalie asked curiously.

"I don't know," Monk admitted.

As if on cue, the door to the room swung open. A panicked-looking Japanese woman entered the scene, her hands wringing fretfully around her beaded ID badge necklace. _Aika Itoh,_ it read in bold, dark letters.

"They found Madeline," she said breathlessly. "In one of the storage rooms."

The other three employees walked briskly up to her, causing the kids' heads to turn. "Oh, thank God," Naomi said. "Is she ready for her presentation?"

"Naomi," Aika shook her head, voice wavering. "She's dead."

* * *

**CHAPTER 1: UNIVERSE B**

**11: 58 AM on the same Wednesday Afternoon in mid-April**

_Clink, clink, clink._

Sharona Fleming rubbed furiously at her right temple. In her left hand was a pen, held upside-down, which she was using to punch strings of numbers into a calculator. Her eyes darted frantically from the tiny screen to the piece of scrap paper she was scribbling on.

_Clink, clink, clink, clink._

Her jaw clenched as she double-checked the math mentally. Then she reached for another envelope off the top of the pile of yet-unpaid bills she was keeping on the kitchen table. She shuffled the papers out of the already-torn envelope and began to skim over them, eyes landing on the total electric for the month. Her face scrunched up further and further in attempted concentration.

_Clink, clink, clink, clink, clink._

She realized, with mounting frustration, that certain other parties in the room were determined to make concentration virtually impossible.

_Clink, clink, clink, clink, clink, clink._

"Would you _cut that out_?" she snapped, letting the pen and paper fall away onto the wooden surface. Her annoyed glare settled on the source of the clinking: Adrian Monk sat across from her, a teacup held in his hand. He'd been stirring the tea nonstop since she'd given it to him.

"Sorry," he mumbled, setting down the teacup, spoon, and saucer as quietly as possible.

"That's okay," she said irritably, looking back to her paperwork with a sigh. She buried her right hand in her dense, curly hair, while her mind attempted to re-bury itself in arithmetic.

Her current frustration didn't actually stem from the fact that her boss was relentlessly annoying—although that certainly was a factor. But aside from all the usual stressors—raising a teenager, the recent slew of bad breakups, and barely being able to live from paycheck to paycheck—she was also in the process of trying to re-negotiate her alimony.

So far it had been less than fun, to say the least. She couldn't even so much as_ think_ about her ex-husband without wanting to tear her hair out. She hated having to rely on Trevor, of all people, to ease her financial burden. But what other choice did she have if she wanted to keep paying the rent? The price of _every_thing kept climbing, but the meager numbers on her paychecks had remained static for almost four years. Apparently the odds of getting a raise from Adrian were roughly the same as the odds of getting struck by lightning.

The only other solution to her problem, then, would be to seek out other means of gainful employment. And if she had to, she would—at least, that's what she kept telling herself.

She began to unconsciously tug at the handful of curls. _Put down four, carry the seven, plus nine is sixteen…_

_Clink, clink, clink._

"Adrian." she slammed the pen down and looked intently at her boss. He squirmed, avoiding her gaze. "I gave you that tea an _hour_ ago."

"Fifty-one minutes ago," he corrected her without meaning to.

"Yeah, fine, fifty-one minutes. What's _wrong_ with it?" she leaned forward on her elbows, pursing her lips.

"Nothing," he lied badly. "It's fine."

Sharona cocked her brow expectantly.

"…Some of the sugar isn't dissolved," he lamented.

"Are you gonna drink it or not?" she asked him tersely.

A pause. He mulled it over.

"Probably not," was his answer. She continued to stare at him in silence for a few seconds.

He resumed stirring.

_Clink, clink, clink, clink._

"_Ugh!"_Sharona resolutely hoisted herself out of her chair and walked briskly into the kitchen, snatching up her empty teacup and Adrian's full one as she passed.

"Sharona, I wasn't finished!" the detective complained.

"Yeah, well you are now," she responded sharply, tossing both cups into the sink. She turned on the faucet and grabbed the dish soap.

The only thing piled higher than the bills around this place were the dishes. Without even thinking about what she was doing, Sharona grabbed a plate and absently started scrubbing in circles. It didn't do much to soothe her nerves, but it sure beat thinking about money. And certain no-good cheapskates that she may or may not have once been married to.

The phone rang once, then twice. Adrian turned his head back toward the kitchen. "Aren't you going to get that?" he asked timidly. Sharona scowled, looking around frantically for a paper towel to dry her sopping hands on. No such luck, though, as no one had bothered to restock the empty paper towel dispenser. As she made a dash for the telephone, she shook her hands like a woman trying to speed along the drying of her nail polish. Adrian ducked and covered in a panic as she sent droplets of filmy water and soap suds everywhere.

"Hello?" she answered, maneuvering the receiver between her ear and shoulder so she could wipe her hands on her skirt. Monk winced at the sheer sloppiness of it all.

"Yes, he's here." She plucked up her pen and began jotting something down. "Uh-huh….okay, what's the address?" A quick pause as she finished getting it all down on paper. "Okay. We'll be right over." _Click_.

"It's a case," she told him, reaching for her car keys.

* * *

"You're angry," Monk remarked delicately as Sharona ran her third consecutive stop sign.

"No I'm not," she said defensively, gesturing obscenely at a truck driver as she passed him illegally on the right. "My _god_, if this guy was driving any slower he'd be going backwards," she spat, tapping emphatically at her horn.

"He's doing forty in a twenty-five miles-per-hour zone!" Monk replied, horrified, as they sped up and swerved to the left. He couldn't bear to watch anymore. He buried his head in the crook of his arm, waiting for what would hopefully be a quick and painless death. "And you're angry," he said into his sleeve.

Sharona slowly exhaled through her mouth, hitting the turn signal as an afterthought. Having this argument—with him _and_ herself—seemed relatively pointless, so she figured she may as well come clean.

"I'm not angry," she repeated, "I'm _pissed._" She flexed her fingers on the steering wheel as they pulled around the corner into a neighborhood. "But not at you," she added quickly.

"Not at all?" was his muffled response. "That's a first."

"Well, I'm always pissed at _you_," she said with a half-smirk, "But this is different."

She seemed to have slowed down just a little. Monk peeked out from under his sleeve, then immediately regretted it when they came dangerously close to a parked SUV. He let out a strangled yelp and clutched the sides of his seat. Sharona either didn't notice or pretended not to, and continued.

"I mean, all this stuff with Trevor just gets me _nuts_, you know? Always promising Benjy the moon—and do you know how many times _I've_ actually almost believed him? And now he turns around and says he can't be bothered to send a few bucks a month to support the woman who's raising his son—it just gets me so—"

"_Cat!_" Monk interjected.

"—so_ disgusted, _I can't—"

"_Cat, cat_,_ cat-cat-cat_!"

"What?"

Before Sharona could react, her boss had reflexively grabbed and pulled up on the emergency brake, bringing the car to an abrupt halt. He shot his arm out to the left protectively, keeping her from colliding with the steering wheel. Crisis averted.

Or not.

Sharona, having overcome the shock of the moment enough to speak, snapped her head sideways. Her hand was still clutching at her heart, her breathing rapid. She looked absolutely livid. "What the hell was _that_ for? You almost gave me a heart attack!"

"There was a cat," Adrian said dumbly, shaky hands gesturing behind them. "A cat. It was a cat," he added unnecessarily.

A few agonizing seconds of silence followed.

"Is it okay?" She asked wearily, pressing her forehead into her palm.

Monk turned around and scanned the road behind them. Then he turned back around and covered the rear-view mirror with his arm. "Yes," he forced a smile, "It's fine. Just…don't look."

Sharona rolled down the driver's-side window and stuck her head out, peering around the side of the car.

"I said _don't look_!" her boss whined, but it was too late. She caught a glimpse of the lone grocery bag drifting across the street. Honestly, she didn't know whether she should be relieved or angry. While she was deciding, she heard the passenger door open and close. Monk had stepped out of the car.

"Where're you going?" she asked, more curious than annoyed now.

"It's a nice day," Monk replied nervously. "I think I'll walk."

* * *

The street was lined with prim two-story houses, each with a front and back yard. Some were decorated lavishly with whirligigs, tiny statues and flowers. Others were sparsely ornamented, with only shrubs hugging the perimeter of the building. It was as if these people had thrown all the rules about symmetry out the window—totally unacceptable. How could they live like this?

Still, it was quiet here, and the weather was gorgeous. The skies had cleared up nicely after last night's rainstorm. He tapped the mailboxes and counted as he went, eliciting an odd glance from an elderly woman across the street who was trimming her hedges.

He had only gone about a block and a half when he heard the steady clacking of heels on the pavement behind him. He knew who it was without having to turn around.

"Hey," Sharona greeted him quietly as she fell into step next to him. Somewhere between a few minutes ago and now, she had popped a piece of gum into her mouth. Her car, he noticed, had been parallel parked—badly—at the other end of the long stretch of sidewalk. "Having fun?"

He responded with a twitch of his shoulder, a gesture they both knew well but only vaguely understood.

"You know what?" she said, adjusting the strap of her purse. "You were right."

"I'm always right," he automatically responded. Two mailboxes later, his curiosity got the better of him. "What was I right about?"

"It really is a nice day," she responded with a small smile and a nudge.

Well, any idiot could have been right about _that_, he thought. But as long as her mood had brightened, he really didn't care.

"Seventeen. Eighteen. Nineteen…" he stopped in his tracks halfway to mailbox number twenty.

Sharona turned around. "What's wrong?"

"I think I missed one. Back there," he pointed, and started to turn around.

"We'll get it on the way back," his companion promised. "We're here." Before he could do so much as protest, she took him by the arm and led him up the driveway of an off-white colonial house surrounded by police tape. The pair ducked under the canopy of the open garden gate and joined the investigation already in progress.

* * *

The dead body _du jour _had been found floating face-down in a koi pond. Four oblivious fish were still swimming gracefully around the deceased's head while a crime scene photographer snapped photos of the odd spectacle. A few uniformed police officers had been hanging around, as well. Six paths of stepping stones branched out from the limestone sun set in the middle of the yard. The garden was rather fancy, although a huge patch of earth near the back screen door had been upturned. It was still muddy from the previous night's rain.

"Captain," Sharona flagged down the only familiar face in the yard. "Over here."

"Monk, Sharona," Captain Leland Stottlemeyer greeted them, stepping over a lawn gnome as he approached. "You'll have to excuse the mess; Dr. Glockner was having a new patio installed," he told them dryly.

"Really? I hadn't noticed," Monk said, unable to keep his eyes off of the messy plot of dirt. It was horrifying, and yet somehow he couldn't look away.

"Landscapers found him at ten-thirty this morning. Fifty-eight, recently retired surgeon, lived alone, had one kid who hardly ever visited. And he pissed plenty of people off in his lifetime, judging from the sheer number of malpractice suits," the Captain filled them in. "From the way he looks now, I'd say he died sometime last night."

"He drowned out here?" Sharona asked out of morbid curiosity.

"Seems that way," Stottlemeyer answered. "Funny thing is, the pond's only a foot deep."

Monk nodded and got to work, pacing the length of the yard. Although he refused to stray from the stepping-stone path onto the muddy ground, his hands were raised in concentration. He stopped to examine the koi pond, kneeling beside it for a few moments. Then he rose silently, parting a gaggle of officers down the middle as he walked toward the stretch of dirt. He kept his distance, as if afraid something might jump up out of the dirt and bite him. His first thought was that someone should cover this thing—it was an absolute disgrace. But then something else caught his attention.

"It must've rained pretty heavily here last night," he said, "The birdbath, the empty flowerpots, the pond—they're all practically filled to the brim. The rain should've washed away any markings that were on this…_dirt_." (He said the word 'dirt' as if he were uttering a blasphemy.) "But there are a couple of places where it looks like someone tried to rub something out—and there's a series of streaks running down the middle."

He pointed it out at a distance, and several of the officers gathered around to take a closer look.

"And there's dirt all _over_ the bottom of the fish pond. Captain, I don't think Dr. Glockner died outside in his garden. Somebody dragged his body out here this morning."

* * *

**AUTHOR'S NOTES:** As if I didn't waste enough space with the preface, I've also got some post-chapter yammering to do!

First off, if you don't get it by now, **Universe A** is the Monkland we know and love, whereas **Universe B** is some sort of an AU where Sharona decided to stick around because Trevor never got his act together. There'll be some other differences later on, but nothing else as major as that. The differences are more obvious to spot—the important thing is to pay attention to the similarities! (But that won't matter until the next chapter, so you didn't miss anything yet. Quit scrolling up the page.)

I think each side of the story is going to kind of reflect the personality of the assistant Monk's with. So the story with Natalie's going to be more fun and lighthearted, and the story with Sharona's going to be deeper and more complex. Each of them has such a unique friendship with Monk that I couldn't leave either one of them out.

Incidentally, Sharona was very very very hard to write for, even though she's my favorite character. WHY DON'T YOU LOVE ME, IMAGINARY SHARONA? WHY? Somehow, I had the easiest time getting into Monk's head. Tell me how I did with everybody, though. And yeah, I know I know, total lack of Randy in this chapter. But he's got an important role to play later on.

The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco is a real place. But I've never been there. So I'm quite sure my imaginary version is nothing like the real thing. I _have_ been to a Japanese culture museum in Florida, and a tea demonstration in Philadelphia, though. So there's a lot based on that. Monk at the tea ceremony has been my favorite scene so far.

This whole story is like a fun experiment for me. It's my first Monk story and my first mystery. I hope, so far, it's been as fun for you to read as it was for me to write. And I hope you stick with the story, because that'll help _me_ to stick with the story. In other words, leave a review, long or short, and I'll love you dearly for it. Feedback is like food for the soul, just like cheesecake is food for the stomach. But unlike cheesecake, reviews don't give me a stomachache.

Special thanks to my little sis Super Grape Pie for being my first guinea pig, and for laughing at some of the jokes.

Damn it, I talk too much. See you next chapter.


	2. Investigation

**CHAPTER 2: UNIVERSE A**

**1:43 that same afternoon**

The afternoon's grim news brought the field trip to an unexpected end, and the kids had been ushered outside to wait for the bus. By this time, rumors surrounding Madeline Davison's death had not only begun to surface; they were spreading faster than a head lice epidemic among the teenagers. Julie had said goodbye to her mother about fifteen minutes ago, when Monk had been called in to investigate. She listened from a distance as a group of her peers stood around swapping gossip.

"Josh_ swears_ he heard them screaming when they found the body—while he was peeing in the men's bathroom."

"Yeah, I heard Mrs. Gillespie telling Regina's mom that it must've happened while we were in the museum."

"I heard the security guard say they found her body lying down in a sarcophagus."

"You know what _I _heard? I heard she was _murdered_."

Julie stepped in before things got too out of hand. "Well, whatever happened to her, Mr. Monk will get to the bottom of it," she assured them. The other teens exchanged glances.

"Monk? The guy who was alphabetizing all the pamphlets in the lobby?" a tall girl snorted. Her companions did little to stifle their amusement.

"He's a great detective," Julie said with confidence. "You'll see."

* * *

On the other side of the museum walls, one of the directors was discussing the unfortunate incident with the police. 

"The collection's on a rotation schedule, since most of it's too light-sensitive to be left out for long periods of time," he explained. "And when the pieces aren't on display, we keep them in storage. Normally we wouldn't have even opened the door to that storage vault for another two weeks, but we were making room for some artifacts that're being returned to us from the University of Penn Museum tomorrow. Otherwise, she could have been locked in there until the end of the cycle and nobody would know where she'd gone." He paused as if searching, choosing his next words with care. "She was so talented. I feel responsible…she was our guest."

Captain Stottlemeyer nodded curtly. "Mr. Leung, did anything else out of the ordinary happen here recently?"

"No, I don't…wait. As a matter of fact, there was something—the janitor, Will Bailey. Early yesterday morning, one of the staff found him passed out in a bathroom stall. We sent him in for drug testing. He came up positive; we had to let him go, but it didn't seem like a matter of life or death." Realization suddenly dawned on the director's face. "Do you think—"

"—the killer drugged him to get the key to the storage room? I'd say that's a pretty sure bet," the Captain interrupted.

Leung shook his head sadly. "If there's anything else I can do…"

"We'll call you if anything comes up," Stottlemeyer replied. He still had a pile of security tapes, a dead body, and a museum full of possible suspects to attend to.

* * *

What had started out as a nightmare of a day for Monk had quickly escalated into a disaster. But unlike kneeling on the floor and sharing a saliva-soaked tea bowl, a dead body in a storage vault was the kind of disaster he was actually equipped to deal with. 

You didn't have to be Adrian Monk to deduce that the poor girl had been strangled. The telltale marks on her neck would have been a dead giveaway to just about anybody. From the looks of it, someone had doubled up a necklace and choked her with it. Monk thought the impression made by the beads seemed familiar somehow, but the heavy dust in the air was throwing off his concentration. He pivoted on his heel, preparing to inspect the body from a different angle.

The rumors had been wrong, of course. Far less extravagant than having been found laid to rest in a sarcophagus, Madeline Davison had been wrapped messily in a black economy trash bag. The bag had then been placed inside of a bulky garbage can on a janitor's cart that someone had locked into the storage vault. All of these items had been taken from the janitor's supply using one of the stolen keys. The bag now lay ripped open on the floor, exposing the pallid corpse. She had been a robust woman in her mid-thirties, dressed in a classy pantsuit. Her guest ID badge was still draped around her neck, hanging loosely by a woven red cord.

Although the janitorial supplies themselves were of little help, there were a few more things of interest among the garbage bag's contents. An open bag of origami paper, missing two pieces, was present amidst the disarray. One crumpled paper crane, which had been perfectly folded at one point in time, was lying down by the victim's waist. And another was clutched in her hand.

* * *

A few minutes later, Monk found himself standing before a small audience in Classroom #2. It consisted of the Captain, Natalie, two police officers, and a handful of mystified museum employees who were pressing their ears up against the closed door. 

"Okay," Monk began slowly, "Ms. Davison is in here alone, fixing that display case," he extended an arm in the direction of '_1000 Paper Cranes: Myths and Messages of Peace.' _ "Killer comes in here with the cleaning cart…" he looped around toward the door. "…Probably posing as a janitor. Ms. Davison couldn't have recognized an imposter; she'd only been here for a few days. And no one else would have noticed, either; the janitor's closet is only two doors down. Anyway," he returned to subtly acting out the scene.

"She's over there, turned towards the wall, putting up paper cranes. The killer comes up from behind her and starts to strangle her—" he illustrated this principal with unnecessary gripping motions "—and there's a struggle. A few of the paper cranes got knocked down in the middle of it all, and two of them—the ones that we found in the garbage—were irreparably damaged. So then the killer dumped the body in the trash can and cleaned up the area to make it look as though nothing had happened. They put the cranes back in the display case, folded up some quick replacements for the crumpled ones, then wiped the glass down to get rid of any prints. Then he or she rolled the whole cart down the hall to the storage vault and locked her in there, knowing Davison probably wouldn't be discovered until the next rotation."

"So you're saying whoever did it had to have worked for the museum in order to know about the rotation dates, right?" one of the officers asked, folding her arms.

"Not necessarily," Monk replied. "This year's rotation schedule is covered in one of the pamphlets in the lobby—anybody who'd conducted a little bit of research could have known about it."

"So you have no idea who killed her, then?" the other officer asked, looking up from his notepad.

"Not yet," Monk gave an involuntary one-armed shrug.

"Well, if you're all finished here, I'd like you to come down to the station and have a look at the security tapes," the Captain said, beckoning towards the door. Monk and Natalie followed him out, sending the eavesdroppers scurrying when they opened the door.

"Captain," a third officer approached them on their exit, carrying an evidence bag. It contained the paper crane that had been found in Madeline's hand. "We found this in the victim's hand. Something's written on it. We think it might be the killer's name."

Closer inspection of the wing, which had previously been obscured by Madeline Davison's hand, revealed a small, sloppy symbol.

"It's chickenscratch," Stottlemeyer said with mock-thoughtfulness.

"Sir, Ms. Davison was fluent in Mandarin Chinese, Korean, and Japanese," the officer said. "We might have a lead if we could find somebody to read this."

"Hey, you know what? I think he's right," Natalie piped up. "It kind of looks familiar…I think I saw it on a tattoo somewhere." While the others took a closer look, she flagged down the nearest museum employee.

"Hey, excuse me—you! With the red shirt! Yeah, could you come here for a second? Thanks," she motioned the volunteer forward. The man in the red approached the group cautiously.

"Do you have any idea what this might mean?" she asked him, indicating the paper crane underneath the clear plastic. Red Shirt removed his glasses briefly and stared at the scribble as if it were something with two heads.

"Strange," he remarked. "It's a Chinese and Japanese character—'_Ai_,' meaning 'love,' but it's written incorrectly. It's backwards," he said, sounding puzzled.

"Backwards?" Natalie turned to Red Shirt, who shrugged.

"Maybe it was her lover who killed her," suggested one of the officers.

"Ai. Ai…_Aika_," Monk mumbled. "Aika Itoh."

"Gesundheit," Stottlemeyer raised an eyebrow.

"No, no, Aika Itoh. She works here, in the museum—that's where I've seen it before!" Monk exclaimed excitedly.

"Seen what before?" Natalie asked, perplexed.

"The pattern on the victim's neck," he explained. "It matches the beads on Aika Itoh's necklace."

* * *

"Ms. Itoh, can we have a word?" Stottlemeyer approached the haggard-looking Japanese woman. She was no more than thirty, and no more than five feet tall. She gave the impression of a person who was very delicate; both in body and spirit. 

"Of course," the woman replied, wringing her hands.

"I'm Captain Leland Stottlemeyer of the SFPD; this is Adrian Monk and Natalie Teeger. We're investigating the murder of Madeline Davison," he said as if reciting from rote. "We need to ask you a few questions."

Itoh nodded, petrified.

"Did you see or speak to Ms. Davison at any time today before the murder?"

"Well…yes," Aika answered haltingly. "We signed in together. She and I both arrived here at the same time this morning. About eight-thirty or so. We met in the parking lot," she looked away awkwardly.

"So the two of you were friends?" Stottlemeyer fixed her with a hard stare.

"No. I-I turned the corner without stopping and ran into her rental car." The woman was barely holding herself together now. She began to talk rapidly and feverishly, as if all her bottled up guilt had finally caused her to explode.

"I didn't _mean_ to run into her car like that, it was an accident! I filed a report and everything, and no one was hurt, but we got into this big argument, you know?" she hiccupped. "Everyone must have heard us; we were in the middle of the lobby—and that was the last time I saw her. I should have just let it go. I said some really nasty things I wish I could take back, but now I can't…" Itoh broke into sobs.

Natalie's first instinct was to comfort the distraught woman, but the look the Captain was shooting her now made her think twice about it.

"Just one more question, Ms. Itoh," the Captain told the young woman as she dabbed at her eyes. "Can you explain why you're wearing the same necklace that was used to strangle Madeline Davison four hours ago?"

Aika wordlessly opened and closed her mouth, her body consumed with shock. All the color had drained from her face. "Oh god," she finally managed to choke. "Oh my god."

As she cast off the necklace, disgusted, and weakly handed it off to Stottlemeyer, an officer approached the small cluster. "Captain," he said stonily, "We searched Miss Itoh's locker. The rest of the stolen cleaning supplies were inside it."

"No—_no_! I swear, my necklace was missing all morning; I just found it in the lost and found around lunchtime! Please, I hit her car, but I didn't murder anybody," Itoh pleaded shrilly.

"Turn around, Miss Itoh," the Captain said, sounding apologetic. The slight woman began bawling, but complied. "You're under arrest for the murder of Madeline Davison. You have the right to remain silent…"

As the police read a hysterically weeping Aika Itoh her rights and led her away, Natalie stood rooted in place, appalled. "She's not the guy," she said with conviction.

"She's_ not_ the guy," Monk echoed.

* * *

Once Natalie's strong sense of justice kicked into high gear, she was a force to be reckoned with. 

"She was framed and you know it!" she practically jumped the Captain as soon as he'd left the interrogation room. "Tell him, Mr. Monk," she shoved her boss forward.

Monk just boggled at her apprehensively, but she urged him forward yet again. "Tell him what you just told me," she repeated impatiently.

"Well—it's true. She's a bad driver, but not a murderer," Monk began with a twitch of his shoulder. "First of all, Madeline Davison was easily_ twice_ Aika Itoh's size—"

"Stranger things have happened, Monk. You ought to know," Stottlemeyer interrupted. "Now, I'm not saying that she _did_ it. All I'm saying is that it _looks_ bad—she was _wearing_ the murder weapon, for chrissakes!" he protested.

"_Exactly_," Monk grimaced, "It's _too _obvious. If the murderer was careful enough to rearrange the display case and wipe their prints off of it, why wouldn't they have gotten rid of the weapon? Davison was wearing a name badge, too; she could have just as easily been strangled with that. But she wasn't—the killer went out of their way to make Itoh look guilty."

"What about the missing cleaning supplies they found in her locker?" Leland tried, already knowing where this was probably going.

"Not surprising—the murderer was in possession of stolen keys and supplies, remember?"

"And the name on the paper crane?" the Captain asked wearily.

"Davison was fluent in both Chinese and Japanese; she wouldn't have written such a simple character backwards. There was no sign of the matching pen in the trash with the body _or_ at the crime scene—the murderer probably wrote it on the paper crane after the fact."

"All right, I believe you," Stottlemeyer surrendered. "But she's the only lead we have so far. We're interviewing the staff, but there were well over a hundred visitors in that museum today! We'll be lucky if we track _half_ of them down for questioning—and you'll have an awfully hard time finding someone who looks guiltier than Misty Waterfalls in there," he jerked his thumb back toward the interrogation room. "I'm sorry, Natalie, but it's just not that easy."

"You've seen how scared she is—she'll have confessed to anything they want by tomorrow morning!" Natalie said adamantly. "We have to do something," she turned to Monk, who was at somewhat of a loss. A thoughtful silence settled over the trio.

"…Okay. I still have all the museum's security tapes from this morning in my office," the Captain suggested. "If you two want to have a look at them, be my guest."

A melodramatic wail erupted from the interrogation room.

"And next time, find me a suspect who doesn't give me a headache," he groaned.

* * *

"Hey, sorry I'm late," Randy Disher said brightly as he poked his head into Captain Stottlemeyer's office with unnecessary enthusiasm. In his right hand he held a takeout bag that smelled strongly of peanuts. "I got called downtown to investigate a disturbance at the Bangkok Bay Restaurant. No big deal, really, but the owner's a pretty cool guy. I even scored us some free appetizers." 

Instead of the exultant welcome he was expecting, Randy was met with silence.

"So…what'd I miss?" he asked Natalie and Monk, who seemed transfixed on the television.

"A woman being wrongly accused of a murder," Natalie answered him glumly, eyes never leaving the screen.

"Oh, sweet! You guys having a Law & Order marathon in here?" Disher excitedly pulled up a chair. Natalie turned and stared at him in disbelief.

"Hey, it's cool, I won't tell the Captain," he told her very sincerely. Natalie shook her head and went back to the TV. Disher reached into his bag and pulled out what appeared to be some crunchy noodles wrapped around a stick.

After a few minutes of crunching and watching, he remarked, "Man, these DVDs are terrible quality. They have to be bootlegs, right?" He squinted, trying to make out what was happening.

"They're security tapes, Randy," Natalie said, mustering up every ounce of patience she had left in her. "We're trying to figure out who murdered Madeline Davison this morning."

"Oh," Randy replied through a mouthful of meekrob. "Right. Gotcha. What kinda guy are we looking for?"

"We don't know yet," Natalie replied with a sigh. "…Can I have one of those? I'm starving."

"Sure," Randy shrugged, passing her a carton.

Monk, meanwhile, had edged closer to the TV. "Okay, right here. This is the lobby. And there are Davison and Itoh, arguing." He paused the tape.

"Yeah, we already know they had a fight this morning," said Natalie. "See anything else?"

Monk studied the monitor carefully, examining each of the passerby. Then he hit play again, watching the scene with interest. He paused again, played again, then paused again.

"This man here," Monk pointed out one of the figures, "He has an unusual bald patch on top of his head."

"So the guy's bald. So what?" Randy asked. "Lots of people are bald."

"True," Monk replied, "But he's also the only person to pass by the girls more than once. Everyone else is going by quickly, avoiding them, but he's taking his time. Look."

Monk rewound the tape, and followed the bald man with his pointer finger as he slowly passed the bickering women twice, thrice, four times. Natalie and Randy both gravitated closer to the screen to watch.

"Yeah, that _is_ weird," Natalie remarked.

Without warning, Randy sputtered, spraying crumbs all over the screen. "Oh my god, I _know_ that guy!" he exclaimed, standing up. "I know him!"

"Oh god, oh _god_!" Monk chimed in, though for an entirely different reason. "It's everywhere…wipe, _wipe_!"

"You know the bald guy?" Natalie inquired of Randy as she handed Monk several pre-moistened wipes out of her purse.

"Yeah, I just saw him today! He owns the Bangkok Bay Restaurant."

"You're positive?" Natalie asked incredulously as she began to aid Monk in his scramble to wipe down the mess on the TV screen.

"You missed a spot," Monk grabbed his assistant's arm and began to move it back and forth frantically over the mess, "For the love of God, hurry, _hurry!_ I think it's dripping!"

"I'm one-hundred percent sure; I'd know that bald spot anywhere!" Randy answered Natalie, oblivious.

"What's his name?" Natalie asked anxiously. "Ow, _ow—_Mr. Monk, my arm does _not_ turn that way! Let go!"

"It's Claus," Randy replied. "Claus Glockner."

"Claus_ Glockner_?" Natalie repeated, dumbstruck, as she retracted her sore arm. "And he owns a _Thai_ restaurant?"

"Yeah," Randy shrugged.

"Well, it's worth a shot. What do you think, Mr. Monk?" Natalie turned to her boss.

"I think we're going to need some industrial strength cleanser," the detective replied forlornly.

"We'll worry about that later," Natalie stood him up gently and guided him out the door.

"Where are we going?" Monk asked, panicked.

"To pay a visit to Mr. Glockner," his assistant chirped as they disappeared out of Disher's sight. "If anyone asks, we're taking a lunch break."

"You're welcome!" the Lieutenant called after them cheerily, waving. Once he was sure they had gone, he looked shadily left and right, pulled a bootleg DVD out of his takeout bag, and popped it into the DVD player. "Alone at last," he grinned to himself as the opening scene of his newly acquired Hong Kong horror film began to play.

* * *

**CHAPTER 2: UNIVERSE B**

**1:43 in the Afternoon, shortly after the Investigation at Dennis Glockner's Home**

The Glockner case was already ranking about a 5 on Sharona's weird-o-meter. The woman _knew_ weird—she worked for Adrian Monk; she ate, slept, and _breathed_ weirdness. That being said, she'd also seen much, _much_ weirder things in recent years. But the fact that someone had wanted to drag an already-dead body out into the backyard and dump it in a foot-deep fish pond…well, it was still pretty damn weird.

So she'd been almost disappointed when nothing too unusual had turned up in the house. There were two table settings, so he'd been expecting company. Someone had vomited _and_ spilled coffee on the living room carpet recently, much to her boss's chagrin. There was a leak in the kitchen ceiling. And Adrian had picked a small, purple bead out from between the couch cushions. But none of it really helped to explain the odd circumstances behind Dr. Glockner's death. An autopsy had been ordered to determine the cause of death, but until the results came back, there wasn't a whole lot to do. There had been one witness in the neighborhood who'd remembered seeing something unusual yesterday evening, and the Captain was on his way to see her. Monk had decided to come along, and Sharona was three steps behind him, wipes at the ready.

"Sorry I'm late," Randy Disher said brightly as he jogged up to them with unnecessary enthusiasm. In his right hand was a takeout bag that smelled strongly of garlic. "I got called downtown to investigate a disturbance at the Venice View Restaurant. No big deal, really, but the owner's a pretty cool guy. I even scored some free appetizers," he waggled his eyebrows at Sharona as he took a bite out of a pizza breadstick.

"Impressive," Sharona rolled her eyes.

"You want one?" Disher asked, spewing crumbs all over the pavement. Monk sidestepped in a panic.

"Didn't your mother ever teach you not to talk with your mouth full, Lieutenant?" Sharona teased as the four of them clambered up the front steps of the house across the street from Glockner's.

"Hah?" was Randy's scathing comeback. He was busy rooting though the bag for some bruschetta, mouth hanging open to expose his half-chewed food.

"Apparently not," Captain Stottlemeyer gibed as he rang the doorbell. A woman answered a few seconds later. She was holding a baby in one arm and a cell phone in the other.

"Sorry, Carol, I'll have to call you back. The police are here," she said into the phone, irritated. She clipped it shut and put it in her pocket.

"Mrs. Mendez," The Captain greeted her. "I'm Captain Stottlemeyer of the SFPD, and these are…" he stopped to stare at Randy, who was noisily chewing on some calamari . "Mrs. Mendez, do you like Italian food?" the Captain asked.

"I guess so," the woman shrugged.

"Good," Stottlemeyer said gruffly, grabbing the bag out of Disher's hands and shoving it into Mrs. Mendez's free arm. "Bon appétit."

"…Thanks, I think," the woman answered, thoroughly confused. Randy just gaped.

The Captain cleared his throat. "So, Mrs. Mendez. We understand that you saw someone leaving Dr. Glockner's house last night?"

"Oh, no, that wasn't me," the woman shook her head. "It was my daughter."

"Your…daughter?" Randy asked curiously, pointing to the baby.

"My _other_ daughter," the woman clicked her tongue. "I'll get her for you." She turned around and yelled into the living room, where the TV was blasting. "_Patricia…¡Oye, Patti! Los policías están aquí. ¡Date prisa!_"

The TV clicked off down the hall. The witness, a girl who didn't look much older than eight, came jogging up to the door. Her unkempt ringlets poked out from under a homemade tinfoil helmet. She was wearing pink ballerina pajamas with horribly mismatched socks. But the most easily noticeable thing about her was the rash and series of tiny blisters covering every inch of her skin.

"My _God_," Monk whimpered, taking a step back. He quickly buried his nose and mouth under his sleeve, trying not to breathe in any of the air that came from inside the house. "Why isn't this place quarantined?"

Sharona elbowed him in the ribs. "Adrian, knock it off! She has chicken pox, not the bubonic plague," she hissed.

"People can _die_ from chicken pox," Monk whispered back, inching further away.

"They can?" the little girl asked, wide-eyed.

"Oh, yes. Yes, they can," Monk replied solemnly, though he was facing away from the house now. "There have been plenty of well-documented cases, I'm afraid—"

"Don't listen to him," Sharona advised the little girl, "You'll be fine."

"Who _is_ that man?" the mother asked Stottlemeyer, pulling back her daughter protectively.

"That's Adrian Monk. He's a consultant, ma'am. He's working with us on this case," Stottlemeyer answered unenthusiastically. "Patti," he knelt down, "You said you saw a man leaving Dr. Glockner's house last night, right? Did you get a good look at him?"

"Are you with the FBI?" Patti asked suspiciously.

"…No," the Captain answered, slightly taken aback.

"Oh," the little girl answered, now looking rather disappointed.

"Would you like to come inside?" Mrs. Mendez finally invited them in, seeing that this was going to take longer than she'd originally anticipated. "The house is a mess, but—"

"_No_," Monk answered quickly. "God, no."

Sharona, aghast at her boss's display of complete social ineptitude, elbowed him again. "Thank you, Mrs. Mendez. We would_ love_ to," she said pointedly.

* * *

"More tea, Lieutenant?" 

"Yes, please," Disher smiled goofily, holding out his pink porcelain teacup to Patti. She quickly used her miniature teapot to fill it with lukewarm apple juice.

Randy, the Captain, Sharona, and Patti—who was absolutely enthralled at the prospect of hosting a tea party with guests who _weren't_ imaginary for once—were now all sitting down around a child-sized table. Each little pink cup, plate, and utensil had been meticulously laid out, a sharp contrast to the heaps of dolls and toy dinosaurs strewn all over the floor. Randy certainly didn't seem to mind being so thoroughly emasculated, but Stottlemeyer looked mortified. Mrs. Mendez had stuck the baby in her playpen and was watching the ridiculous spectacle with interest from across the room. Monk had opted to play it safe, and was watching from the front window. Outside, he was making big, exaggerated gestures and shouting something.

'_What?'_ Sharona mouthed as he made an embellished choking motion.

'_You—have—to—get—out—of—there!'_ he was saying, making up sign language as he went.

'_No,__ you_,' she pointed animatedly at him,_ 'come in __here_,' she waved her hands behind her to indicate the room.

Monk shook his head fervently and tried to pantomime '_slow and horrible death_' while Sharona turned around, squinting her eyes shut and pinching the bridge of her nose.

"Cookie?" Patti offered her a plate as Stottlemeyer grabbed the cord to the blinds and snapped them shut, obscuring Monk from view.

"No, thank you," Sharona declined graciously. She had a sneaking suspicion that they'd been fashioned out of Play-Doh.

"Patti, this is _very_ important," Stottlemeyer said exasperatedly for about the fifth time. "We can't catch the bad guy unless you tell us _exactly_ what you saw."

"Okay," Patti huffed, handing the plate off to Randy. He picked up a Play-Doh cookie and started idly rolling it into a ball in his hands.

"Um…" she began. Her guests leaned in eagerly.

After about fifteen seconds she looked the Captain squarely in the face and said, "I forget."

Stottlemeyer shifted awkwardly in the tiny chair. "You said you were looking through your telescope, right?"

"Uh-huh," Patti smiled. "I discovered an alien planet," she said excitedly, turning to Randy.

"Really?" Disher replied interestedly, tossing the Play-Doh ball up and down in his left hand. The other adults at the tea party shot him disapproving looks.

"I mean," Randy coughed, pressing his thumbs into the Play-Doh nervously, "Uh, then what? Did you get a look at Dr. Glockner's house?"

"Yeah," Patty said slowly, thinking hard. "I looked down because I heard a car door. I thought it was Mom and Dad coming home from the movies." She fidgeted with her utensils.

"But it wasn't?" Randy prodded further, making the Play-Doh into a snake between his palms.

Patti nodded. "There was somebody next door."

"And did you see what he looked like?" The Captain re-joined the discussion now that it was going somewhere.

Patti thought about it for a second as she scratched at a scab under her arm. "He had a bald head."

"Honey, stop scratching!" her mother exclaimed. Patti made a sour face.

"Is that all?" Stottlemeyer asked resignedly.

"Um…He was driving a van. Like the one they used to deliver the food at my cousin Rosario's birthday party."

"A catering van?" Sharona turned to the Captain, who shrugged.

"Mrs. Mendez, can you think of anyone in the neighborhood who matches that description?" the Captain turned to Patti's mother, not expecting much to come of it.

"A bald guy with a catering van?" Mrs. Mendez recapped the suspect's odd description. "No, not really."

"Huh. Well, I guess we're done here, then," the Captain nearly toppled the tiny table in his hurry to stand up and stretch his sore lower back.

"All right," Mrs. Mendez said restlessly, hands itching to wrap around her cell phone again. "Patricia, say goodbye to the nice officers."

"Do I have to?" the little girl scowled. Her mother inclined her head and placed her hands on her hips. "Fine," Patti rolled her eyes. "Sorry you have to go. You can come to my birthday party if you want."

The Captain chuckled. "Well, it's very nice of you to invite us, Patti, but I don't think your mother would—"

"Not _you_," the grade-schooler cut him off. "I was talking to Lieutenant Disher," she beamed at Randy. "We're having ice cream cake."

"Wait, wait, hold on," Patricia's mother interrupted, ice cream cake the furthest thing from her mind. Her years of being an insufferable busybody were about to pay off. "I _do_ know someone like that. Dr. Glockner's son. He's bald—and he owns a restaurant. He has a van like that!" she said excitedly, as if she were giving the winning answer on a game show.

"The son?" Stottlemeyer asked.

"The one who never visits?" Sharona added.

"Yeah, he usually only comes by at Christmas. You know the Venice View Restaurant? He owns it." Mrs. Mendez answered smugly.

Randy's jaw dropped. "Oh my god, I _know_ that guy! Claus, Claus Glockner; I met him this morning!"

"Claus _Glockner_?" Sharona raised an eyebrow. "And he owns an_ Italian_ restaurant?"

"Yeah," Randy shrugged.

"Thank you, Mrs. Mendez," the Captain said, shaking the woman's hand, "We'll look into it."

"Thanks for the tea," Randy waved goodbye to Patti.

As they departed, Sharona pulled Mrs. Mendez aside. "Try oatmeal baths and calamine lotion for the itching," she suggested, indicating Patti with a subtle inclination of her head. "Trust me, they're a godsend."

"Thanks," Mrs. Mendez smiled. Her grin faded when she saw Monk tapping frenetically at the screen door. "…Is he all right?"

"No," Sharona said bluntly, "No he isn't."

"Don't forget!" Patti called after the Lieutenant as the group shuffled out the door, "It's May 10th at one o'clock! Bring a present!"

* * *

"What happened?" Monk asked anxiously as his friends emerged from the Mendez household. 

"Randy finally met a girl who's really interested in him," Sharona quipped. "He's even got a date."

"I think you're jealous," Disher replied in a sing-song voice.

"I think you're delusional," Sharona shot back.

"Congratulations," Monk said to Randy, dead serious. "Can we talk about the case now?"

"Well, we don't have much," the Captain admitted. "A seven-year-old girl claims she saw a bald man leave Dr. Glockner's last night in a catering van."

"It might have been the victim's son," Disher added. "He owns the restaurant I went to this morning. Small world, huh?"

"Y'know, I think we should check it out," Sharona told her boss. "If we're lucky, we might get some free appetizers," she added wryly.

* * *

**AUTHOR'S NOTE MARK II:** Whew. I feel like Universe **A** ended up being overly clunky, but I had to get all the clues in, you know? I liked doing the part with Randy, though. He was the most fun to write…as if you couldn't tell. Har har. 

Does anybody else ever have problems with formatting italics on this site? It's a real pain.

Universe **B**'s story was originally intended to be a little darker. But then I came up with a few funny developments that were too good to pass up. Like the chicken pox girl. She kind of surprised me, actually. She was originally going to be a sci-fi obsessed teen. I think there are still remnants of my original idea, though, what with the telescope and tinfoil hat and all…what can I say? Tinfoil hats are awesome.

I still wish I could make Sharona a little…cleverer? I dunno, banter's not my area of expertise. I also couldn't really do too much introspective stuff in this chapter, since it focused primarily on the mystery at hand.

Anywhoodle, thanks again to my little sis, who beta'd my chapter by reading it _out loud_. And gave the characters funny voices. She made Stottlemeyer sound like a hillbilly. It was a hoot, you shoulda been there. Oh yeah, and thanks to MONKrules, for your encouragement on the USA Monk forums. It's true, I am my own harshest critic:P

Speaking of critics. _Review_, gosh darnit. I can promise you neither punch nor pie, and yet you should still review out of the goodness of your heart. Reviews will help my soul to grow as an author, or some cosmic junk. Also, any interested betas? My little sister's great and all, but it'd be nice to have an outside opinion.

I still talk too much. See you in Chapter 3!


	3. Restaurant

**Author's Note:** This needlessly long chapter goes out to my reviewers. Thanks, guys—see you at the end. Happy reading!

**CHAPTER 3: UNIVERSE A**

**4:35 pm**

Being a detective's assistant had its ups and downs. The cases were often tiring and complicated; her boss was often _twice_ as tiring and complicated, but at the end of the day, it was usually all worth it. Natalie's job had other perks, of course—meeting all manner of famous people (although weirdly enough, most of them turned out to be murderers), visiting exotic locales, occasionally getting mentioned in the newspaper under headlines like 'Former Police Detective Cracks Impossible Murder Case'…and then there were days like today. The kind of day where she spent her so-called lunch break sitting in traffic directly behind a bus on Market Street, chasing after clues that probably weren't even there.

By now it was really closer to dinnertime than lunchtime, but that actually worked out in Monk and Natalie's favor. They were more likely to get a chance to talk to the suspect after the lunch crowd had left, but before the dinner crowd arrived. Or, at least, that's what Natalie had been hoping for; the rush hour traffic kind of threw a big fat monkey wrench into the works. Julie had offered to start dinner, and while it was a nice gesture, it certainly didn't make Natalie's life any easier.

"No, it's behind the instant mashed potatoes. Move the cereal boxes out of the way first. Do you see it now?" she said into her Bluetooth. "Okay…good. Don't forget to use an oven mitt when you take it out. No, no, wait, sweetie—are you sure you set it to the right temperature?"

Monk had been sitting quietly on the passenger's side all this time, looking uneasy. Suddenly, and quite without warning, he snapped around to the side, hands cupped around his mouth.

"JULIE, THIS IS ADRIAN MONK SPEAKING," he all but shouted into the tiny cellular device—and, by extension, his assistant's ear. Natalie cringed as he continued. "YOUR MOTHER CAN'T TALK TO YOU RIGHT NOW, SHE'S _VERY_ BUSY. DO—YOU—UNDERSTAND—?"

Natalie stole a quick, mystified glance at her boss before returning her eyes to the road. "…I'll call you back," she hastily told her daughter before hanging up. Her ears were still buzzing. "What's wrong?"

"You can't talk on the phone and drive at the same _time_, Natalie," Monk said as if explaining something very basic to someone very stupid.

"I do it every day, Mr. Monk," Natalie replied, slightly annoyed but mostly just curious as to why it bothered him so much.

"You _what_? My god," Her boss turned and gawked at her, horror-struck, "It's a wonder you're still alive. Just—just don't do it anymore. There are laws—"

"I have a headset, Mr. Monk, I'm allowed to use it in the car. It's fine," Natalie reassured him.

"_Fine_?" he repeated the word as if it were foreign, "It's not fine, it's the opposite of fine! It's…it's completely _un-_fine. It's suicide! Statistics show…"

He wasn't getting through to her. Natalie looked like she was about to start laughing at him any second now. "Natalie, listen to me," he pleaded, "_Think_ about it. Think of all the things you have left to live for. But most of all, think of _me_. _I'm_ the one in the passenger seat," he said with emphasis.

Great at being a detective, and _really _great at making a mountain out of a molehill—that was Adrian Monk in a nutshell, Natalie thought to herself as the traffic picked up again.

* * *

"Number 601," Natalie compared the address on the door of the eating establishment to the one on the slip of paper she was holding. The place was just a small part of a long strip mall, nestled snugly between a Laundromat and a used record store. "This is it," she stated. (Monk briefly wondered why whoever was in charge of giving out addresses to these sorts of places couldn't count by hundreds. Or at _least _ by twos.)

The bell over the door let out a feeble jingle as the duo stepped over the threshold of the Bangkok Bay Restaurant. It was a small, quaint sort of place, if not a little outlandish. The standard-issue fish tank full of fat carp, the plethora of gold-plated Buddhas, and archaic-looking paintings of Thailand were all present. And whoever had decorated the place had a penchant for pachyderms; _that _ was for sure. There were elephants _everywhere_—wooden ones, bronze ones, big ones, small ones. (Not to mention a couple of outright _hideous _ones.) Monk reached out and poked the end of a protruding trunk with his fingertip, then drew back, wiping his hand on his coat. He suddenly found himself transfixed on the ugly sculpture.

"Hello? Anybody here?" Natalie looked around the empty dining room.

"Someone's in the kitchen," Monk remarked, still unable to take his eyes off the enormous porcelain beast that was staring him in the face. It was looking straight at him; _judging_ him. He just _knew_ it. And if he turned around, it would _still _ be staring at him. No matter what he did, the elephant would win.

All he could do was stare back. _Damn_ that elephant.

Natalie, meanwhile, was a little puzzled over why he was currently in a staring contest with a statue. "Mr. Monk, are you okay?"

No reply from Monk, but a clatter from the back room made her remember why they were here. "Hello? Mr. Glockner?" she strode up to the two flaps that were draped over the entrance to the kitchen area.

"Yo!" a balding head suddenly protruded from between the twin cloths, startling Natalie. She jumped back about half a foot, causing the man to erupt into peals of deep, gravelly laughter.

"Sorry, sorry. Didn't mean to scare ya," the man chuckled. "Table for two?"

"Actually, no, we're—"

"Oh, no problem. Takeout?" he asked, rolling out of the kitchen in an office chair. His partial baldness wasn't his only distinguishing feature. He had a brawny build—the man might have had a football player's physique, if it hadn't been for the large beer belly he was also sporting. A small, circular bandage was just above his left eyebrow, and he spoke stridently with a thick accent that Natalie couldn't quite pinpoint—New England, if she had to guess. The man pulled a pencil out from behind his ear and a tablet from his back pocket, then sat poised to jot down an order.

"Uh, no. No thank you," Natalie folded her arms, looking at the bald man dubiously. "Are you Claus Glockner?"

"Yeah—yeah, that's me," he answered with a smile. "What can I do ya for, Miss…?"

"Teeger. Natalie Teeger," she shook his hand briefly. "And this is Adrian Monk," she indicated her boss, who gave a half-hearted wave. His gaze was still locked with the statue's.

"You a fan of elephants, Mr. Monk?" Glockner asked with a wry smile, hopping to his feet. He sauntered over to where Monk was standing.

"No, not really," Monk replied with a shudder.

Glockner let loose with another laugh, guttural and unsettling. "Yeah, me neither. I hate the damn things. I'm thinking about redecorating."

"Mr. Glockner," Natalie stepped between them, "Mr. Monk is a detective. We're working with the San Francisco Police Dep—"

"Oh, this again, huh?" Glockner turned to her, looking surprised. "I already talked to one of your guys this afternoon."

"We know," said Natalie.

"What happened, exactly?" Monk inquired distantly, reaching out tentatively to touch one of the elephant's tusks. Natalie finally intervened—he stumbled a little as she placed her hands on his sleeve and tugged lightly.

"It was nothing," Glockner shrugged it off as he led them both into the kitchen. "Angelo from next door thought he heard a noise and called the cops."

Unlike the unusual but tidy dining room, the kitchen was in total disarray. Steam hung in the air, thick and heavy, creating a dull haze. On the counter was a mess of scrap paper—old receipts, expired coupons, a landscaping card, maps that had been printed off the internet, and an envelope that had once contained the card key to a hotel room at the St. Francis. On the opposite counter, a stack of unwashed pots and pans was teetering over the sink, and unfurled dishtowels lay sprawled like lazy, sunbathing cats all over the counter. Monk was snapping for wipes as if his life depended on it.

"Would you mind if I moved a few things?" Monk asked desperately. This kitchen was just too bad to ignore.

"Uh…nah, I guess not," Glockner answered, a tad confused.

While Natalie supplied Monk with the antibacterial hand wipes, Glockner grabbed a remote control out of his apron pocket and hit the 'pause' button. The subtitled horror movie on the ten-inch TV in the corner froze. He must have been quite a fan—there was a slew of foreign horror DVDs spilling out of a paper grocery bag three or four feet away.

The cook, a stout, tan man of about fifty, was seated comfortably on a cushioned stool in the back. He looked up, waved, and then returned to his Spanish newspaper.

"Hello," Natalie greeted him politely.

"Don't bother," Glockner smirked, "The guy doesn't speak a word of English."

"Uh-huh," Monk mumbled. "So, about this afternoon…what kind of a noise did Angelo hear—or think he heard?" he asked. Having just finished arranging the mound of scrap paper by size, he busied himself by folding each towel individually and putting them in neat little piles. He never touched anything, of course—the wipes were a makeshift barrier.

"Well," Glockner said sheepishly, "There was a scream. And then a crash. It must've sounded a little weird from over there, but it was just me."

"You screamed and crashed?" Monk reiterated, stopping to watch as Glockner adjusted the pen behind his ear.

"Yeah, yeah—I broke one of the ceramic elephants," he supplied. "Total accident, just ran right into the damn table."

"Uh-huh," Monk said tonelessly, re-adjusting the last pile of towels. There should be two of each color—the beige, manila, and gray were in pairs—but where was the second off-white one? He began to poke around, searching for it. Glockner didn't seem too bothered by the apparent snooping, as he was busy talking to Natalie now.

"I was pretty zoned out all morning," the restaurant owner tapped his head with his index finger. "I'm not all right upstairs at the moment, I guess—my father just died."

"Oh no, I'm so sorry," Natalie said sympathetically.

"Nah, don't be," Glockner shook his hand dismissively. "We never got along." He cleared his throat. "So, anything else you need to know about?"

"Just one thing," Monk said, eyeing the second off-white towel. Fortunately, he'd been able to locate it fairly easily. _Un_fortunately, it was floating in the sea of dirty dishwater. He fished around for it with his tweezers. "Where were you from eight o'clock this morning until about eleven?"

"Me? I was here all day," Glockner answered. "Cleaning up, taking reservations, filling orders, serving customers, the usual."

"Can you prove it?" Monk asked as he slowly lifted the soaking towel out of the filthy water and set it down in its proper place.

"Yeah, no problem," Glockner answered, grabbing a clipboard off the wall. "I got a list of all the customers who had orders. This is the backup copy. Take it," he held it out showily. "Can I ask why?"

Suddenly all business, Monk rounded on him.

"It's for a homicide investigation," the detective replied intently, taking the sheet of paper from the clipboard with his sleeves and handing it to Natalie. "A man matching your description was seen at the Asian Art Museum around the same time the murder occurred there."

"Murder," Glockner whistled. "Sheez. Well, good luck to ya, then," he gave a little salute to the pair. Monk and Natalie said their goodbyes and parted the drapes in the doorway, both glad to be leaving the murky kitchen with its awful dishtowels behind.

On the other side of the curtain, Glockner regarded the freshly organized countertops with a smirk, then hit 'play' on the remote and resumed his movie. As his eyes darted back and forth across the subtitles, he sipped on the nearest alcoholic beverage—which happened to be cooking wine. The cook shook his head, a look of slight disgust playing across his dark features.

* * *

"What'd you think?" Natalie whispered, sidestepping the abandoned office chair as they made their retreat.

There was no reply. Her boss had stopped in mid-step, and was now looking keenly at the rug a few feet away from them. He raised his hands up and circled the area of carpet thoughtfully a few times, then crossed to the only empty pedestal in the room. It was against the west wall, the one adjacent to Angelo's store. Monk carefully bent down and looked behind it. Then he stood straight up again with a look of resolve.

"What is it?" Natalie asked him eagerly. He pointed to the door and they both hurried out past the tables, fish, elephants, and sickly-sounding doorbell.

"Natalie," he said once they were outside, "Something's wrong. First he said there was a scream and _then _ a crash, but if he'd broken the statue by accident, why would he have screamed first? And the shards from the ceramic—if he'd really broken the statue by bumping into the table, most of the pieces would have fallen nearby. There weren't _any _ shards around the table—but there were dozens of little pieces of ceramic stuck in the carpet about four yards away. I don't know why, but he's hiding something."

"Hiding what?" Natalie asked, glancing back at the restaurant one more time before she climbed back behind the wheel of her parked car.

"Whatever really went on in that restaurant this afternoon, he doesn't want us to know about it," Monk replied, taking up his usual spot in the front. "There's still the list of names," he adjusted his seatbelt. "_Some_one on that list must have noticed _some_thing."

Natalie turned the keys in the ignition and began to pull out onto the road. "I'll call the Captain."

Monk quickly confiscated her Bluetooth and cell phone. "That's fine. Just…not while we're driving."

* * *

Waiting for the police to finish going through the list of Claus Glockner's customers seemed to take an eternity. But by the time the next damp and dreary afternoon had reared its ugly head, the job was finished, and the results were wholly unsatisfying.

"Glockner's alibi checks out. He was working in the restaurant all morning; there were over 40 eyewitnesses," Stottlemeyer told Monk for about the twelfth time.

"You're sure you talked to _all _ of them?" Monk asked him, fiddling with the pencils on a nearby desk.

"Every single one," the Captain replied, irritated.

"Except for the prank caller," Randy added. He was leaning back in his swivel chair, feet up, lazily chucking paper balls into his waste bin. Each one sailed swiftly over his desk lamp and hit the bottom of the basket with a satisfying _crunch_.

"I see you've been practicing," Natalie grinned as she leaned on the desk casually.

"Yeah, well—I mean, nah," the Lieutenant replied, flustered.

"May I?" the blonde asked coyly, plucking another paper ball out of Disher's hand.

"Sure," Randy answered enthusiastically. Natalie took up a basketball player's stance and prepared her aim.

"It's all about the hand-eye coordination," Randy coached, "If you can't sink it the first time, you can try…"

He never finished giving her the advice, because she had already landed the paper in the waste basket—the one against the wall in the far corner of the room, that is. She stood back, folded her arms, and smiled broadly, admiring her work.

"Did you _see _ that?" Randy asked the Captain, astounded.

"Yep," Stottlemeyer said flatly. "But I'm going to pretend I didn't." He flashed a stern look at Randy and Natalie, who both returned bashfully to work.

"What's this about a prank caller?" Monk asked, now that the pencils were lined up perfectly parallel with one another.

"Someone called from a payphone across the street and placed a delivery order. Claus had his cook run the food over, but when he got there, he realized the building was abandoned," Randy filled him in.

"It was probably just a couple of kids who thought they were being funny," the Captain said dismissively.

"Okay. Okay," Monk processed the information and thought deeply for a minute or so. "…But are you sure you called _all _ the customers?"

"Yes, in chronological order," Stottlemeyer rolled his eyes. "Look—"

"Wait-wait-wait," Monk interrupted, chuckling a little, "Wait. _There's_ your problem. Chronological order, that's…that's _all _ wrong. Why don't you try calling them again? In alphabetical order? That would definitely be better," he suggested with a tense smile.

"I don't have time for this, Monk." The Captain stood up to gather the row of perfectly parallel pencils and plopped them one by one back into the empty pickle jar they'd come from. Monk flinched as each one landed with a _plink_. "I usually trust your instincts, but this guy's a dead end. He personally rung up every person on that list; there's no way in Hell he could've been to the museum and back in between all those customers," he dropped the last pencil. "And not one of them saw anything out of the ordinary," he added.

"But only because they weren't paying enough attention," Natalie picked up for her boss without missing a beat. "There's _something _ weird going on in that place."

"If there is, it's none of our business," Stottlemeyer shrugged on his jacket.

"You're leaving already?" Natalie asked him.

"Just going for a little ride. Madeline Davison was staying at the St. Francis Hotel," the Captain answered. "We're going to have a look at her room before they clean out her things."

"The St. Francis?" Monk repeated as if he'd just been struck by lightning. (The _good_ kind of lightning—if such a thing were possible.)

"You're welcome to come," The Captain added.

"The St. Francis—Glockner was there. He had an envelope for a room key in his kitchen," Monk said aside to his assistant, who nodded meaningfully. "We'll go," he looked up and told the Captain, who nodded and motioned Monk and Natalie toward the exit.

"If everyone's so sure Aika Itoh's the murderer, what're we looking for at the hotel?" Natalie asked the Captain, genuinely curious.

"Well, if she did it, she had an accomplice. She was out of town the day the janitor was drugged," Stottlemeyer answered.

"_If_ she did it." Natalie emphasized. "Which she didn't."

"Right," the Captain agreed wearily.

Randy caught up with them on the way out. "You know, you might not be wrong," he told Monk, "I have a theory. Glockner could still be the guy."

"And how is that, Randy?" The Captain asked in an even tone, bracing himself for something utterly ridiculous.

"Okay. Ready?" Randy took a dramatic pause, much to the annoyance of the others around him. "What if…" he looked around conspiratorially, "What if he has an evil twin?"

"An evil twin?" Natalie giggled. "Yeah, why didn't we think of that, Mr. Monk?" she playfully rapped her boss on the arm.

Adrian wasn't really picking up on the sarcasm here. "Because it's _ridiculous_," he scoffed at her.

"No, no, I'm not finished!" Disher waved his hands around excitedly. "Glockner was at the restaurant all day, right—okay, but his evil twin went out that morning to the museum and killed Madeline Davison!" he finished with a self-satisfied grin.

"So Glockner _still _ isn't the guy, his evil twin did it," The Captain pointed out.

"Oh yeah," Randy deflated a little. "But it would still explain how he could show up on the security camera _and _ be in the restaurant at the same time."

"He has a point," Natalie raised her eyebrows. It _could _ make sense.

"Natalie, stop agreeing with him!" Monk protested. "You're scaring me."

"So where's the twin now?" Stottlemeyer asked impatiently, wondering why on God's green earth they were still even having this discussion.

"I'm working on it," Disher said earnestly. "Give me a couple of days."

"Yeah, good luck with that," the Captain muttered.

As the four of them left the police station and climbed into their respective vehicles, storm clouds from the West began to gather overhead, unnoticed.

* * *

**CHAPTER 3: UNIVERSE B**

**Sometime Between Lunch and Dinner**

"601," Sharona read the address off the door of the Italian restaurant. "This is the place." It was smaller than she'd expected—just a little section of strip mall sandwiched between a Laundromat and a used record store. Still, the inside looked pretty upscale. She looked sideways at her boss, who was transfixed on the menu taped to the window a few feet away.

"They spelled '_Fettuccini' _ wrong," he shook his head, dismayed. "What kind of an Italian restaurant _is _ this?"

"The kind we're about to investigate. Come on," she said, getting behind him. She would forcefully shove him through the front door if she had to—they'd already missed lunch trying to find this godforsaken place, and she didn't know _what _ she was going to do if she was forced to go hungry for too much longer. It certainly wouldn't be pretty, that was for sure.

"Wait, wait. I have to finish," Monk held up an arm to stop her.

"No you don't," his companion replied brusquely. The corner of her mouth contorted slightly in annoyance as she watched his eyes continue unfalteringly down the page. She understood it was part of his disorder; this compulsion to read every word on the menu—problem was, she didn't have time to indulge him. The thing was six pages long. She racked her brain for a way to get him away from the window and into the restaurant.

"Tell you what. When we go inside, we can get you your own takeout menu. And then you can bring it back to your apartment and look at it all night long if you want, all right? I wanna get home before dinner." She folded her arms and leaned her back against the glass. "…Adrian?"

"…_in a white wine sauce, with littleneck clams_…" he mumbled in reply.

"Okay, Plan B." Sharona slapped both hands firmly over the bottom of the page. The kicked-puppy look she received in response didn't faze her. "There. Now you _can't _ read it," she sad triumphantly.

Monk closed his eyes and tried to picture the menu in his mind's eye. "…_lightly breaded and tossed with_…um…_our house lemon butter and garlic_…no," he grappled with the words, distracted by the sound of fingernails drumming rapid-fire against glass. "What did you do that for?" he turned to his assistant with a pained look. "Now I have to start over."

"Fine, go ahead," Sharona shrugged flippantly, "But if you do, I'm getting in the car, driving home without you, and starting dinner. This is ridiculous."

Monk almost laughed at the absurdity of what she was implying. "You wouldn't leave me here," he promptly turned back to the top of the wine list. "_We serve only the finest vintages from both Italy and California by the bottle and half-bot_…Sharona?"

His assistant had already turned around and stepped down from the curb. "Hope you brought enough money for the bus," she called over her shoulder. "It's an awfully long way to walk."

Monk took one last, longing glance at the menu before he finally tore himself away and scrambled to catch up with her. "Okay! Okay, I was just kidding. We can go in there now."

Satisfied, Sharona did an about-face and followed him back to the entrance of the Venice View.

"I was just kidding," her boss repeated. "You were…kidding too, right?"

Sharona gave him an indecipherable look and pushed past him through the door. The bells overhead clanked together half-heartedly as the two of them entered the building. The duo stepped around a waitress who was on her way out. She paid the detective and his assistant no mind; she was too busy thumbing through the wads of disorganized bills protruding from her apron pocket.

"Oh my god," Sharona eyed the money with contempt. "What'd she do, rob the cash register?"

A rough voice from behind the long pastry counter chortled, catching her off guard. It belonged to a sturdy-looking man with a New England dialect and a tiny bandage above his left eyebrow. "Looks that way, don't it? Nah, Wendy always gets good tips. Table for two?"

"What? Oh—no, no. We're here to speak with Mr. Glockner. Is he in?" Sharona inquired.

"You're looking at him," the bald fellow said jovially. "What can I do ya for, Miss…?"

"Fleming," Sharona shook his extended his hand. She was a little surprised—she'd been expecting someone a lot older.

"Miss Fleming," the owner beamed. "Call me Claus. Rhymes with 'blouse.' And this is…?" he looked at her companion.

"Adrian…Monk. Rhymes with…Adrian Monk," the detective answered, totally deadpan.

"Ha! A sense of humor. I like that," Glockner grabbed Monk's hand over the counter and shook it heartily. Monk winced for the duration of it.

"Yeah, he's a real riot," Sharona said ironically as she pressed a wipe into her boss's extended palm and watched him scrub zealously with it.

"So, down to business—what brings you two to my little corner of the culinary world?" Claus leaned on the counter keenly.

"We're working with the police on your father's case," Monk explained. "We were wondering if you could tell us anything about what might have happened to him."

Glockner's smile abruptly vanished. "You know about Dad, huh?" he asked somberly. "I just found out this morning. I still can't believe it, you know? Working's really the only thing that's keeping me sane right now. Takes my mind off things."

Sharona nodded in understanding. "We won't be long."

"Mr. Glockner, did you notice anything unusual the last time you saw your father?" Monk asked.

"Nah, not really," the owner shrugged, "To tell you the truth, we didn't speak much," he admitted.

"What about last night?" Monk prodded, taking a step toward the counter.

"Last night?"

"One of the neighbors saw a man of your description pull away from your father's driveway in a catering van last night," Monk explained.

"I see," Claus nodded thoughtfully. "Well, I don't know who that could've been," he adjusted the pen behind his ear. "I was here all night, though. Working the kitchen, ringing up customers, cleaning…that sorta thing."

"And you can prove all that?" Monk asked interestedly, inching closer to the counter. Sharona wondered what he was getting at—and where he was going.

"Yeah, no problem," Glockner shrugged. "I got a list of all the customers who had orders and reservations. Backup copy's in the kitchen. Be out in a sec."

While the burly business owner disappeared behind the free-swinging double doors into the kitchen, Monk crossed behind the pastry counter and started circling the area like a very neurotic vulture.

"What're you doing?" Sharona asked regarding his strange behavior. Not that _all _ his behavior wasn't strange, but still. She plopped her purse onto the counter lazily.

"There's a stain," her boss remarked, pointing to a huge, atrocious red blotch on the white carpet. "Red wine. Looks like someone dropped a whole bottle here."

Sharona was about to strongly suggest that he ignore it when Claus Glockner emerged from the kitchen, a clipboard in his hand.

"Admiring my work of art?" Glockner guffawed when he returned to find the skittish detective standing in his spot. He unclipped a page from his long list of orders and handed it off to Sharona.

"You did this?" Monk asked, bewildered. (How anyone could stand to go on living with such a horribly soiled rug beneath their feet was beyond him.)

"Yeah, this afternoon. Total accident, just ran right into the damn shelf," Glockner signaled out an array of wine bottles carefully arranged in a row on the shelf behind him. Sure enough, one of them was missing. "It made such a racket, Angelo from next door called the cops," he shook his head.

"All because of a broken wine bottle?" Sharona asked conversationally.

"Well, that and the screaming," Glockner chuckled. "I was pretty upset—it was vintage 1986. That was a good year," he smirked. "Not that you're old enough to remember," he teased her.

"Oh, please," Sharona laughed, "I'm not _that _ young."

While Sharona chatted up the suspect, Monk methodically inspected each of the wine bottles. They were all of the Pinot Grigio variety; the same brand, arranged according to the year they were made. He made a mental note of everything on the labels before he tuned back into the conversation.

"…It's been a crazy day, I'll tell ya. First the news about Dad, then the prank caller—sent the cook out on a pizza delivery all for nothing. And then right in the middle of my lunch break, the police showed up. Good thing there were no customers around, they would've all been scared off. But the cops were pretty cool about the whole thing. That one guy…Randy Disher, you know him?"

"Unfortunately," Sharona smirked.

"Ah, Randy's a good guy," Glockner said affectionately. "We have the same taste in movies."

Monk practically tiptoed around to the other side of the counter, all the while avoiding the stain as if it were some rabid animal.

"Well, we don't want to take up too much of your time," he said a little too loudly, abruptly cutting in to the conversation at an awkward point, "We have to get going—it's almost time for dinner," he added with a strained little smile and nod in his assistant's direction.

"Right, dinner," Sharona supplied awkwardly. "Well, thanks for all your time, Mr. Glockner, we appreciate it." She shook his hand again and gathered up her purse.

"Anytime, Miss Fleming, anytime," Claus smiled lecherously. "Hey, tell you what. You two take home a couple of cannolis, okay? It's on the house. I have more than I can ever sell in one day, anyway," he took the hollow pastry shells out from the glass case, filling each with ricotta and bagging them with his bare hands. Watching it made Monk feel slightly queasy. He mumbled a goodbye and started to head back outside.

"Psst," Glockner whispered aside to Sharona as she took the bag gratefully. "You ever get tired of detective work, you give me a call. We could always use another waitress around here, ya know," he winked.

"I'll think about it," Sharona said good-humoredly, though not especially interestedly, as she made her exit.

"…No she won't," Monk poked his head through the door, earning himself confused looks from both the restaurant owner and the nurse. "Sorry for your loss," he added quickly before he ducked back outside. He noticed something in the window that he hadn't before—a newspaper clipping of Claus Glockner winning an annual award for Best Italian Restaurant. Something was off about Glockner in the photo, though…he just couldn't place it.

The balding man silently watched them go, then headed back toward the kitchen. He waved hello to the cook, who barely looked up from his Spanish newspaper, and grabbed an open bottle of Pinot Grigio—vintage 1998—off the counter. He took a deep, full swig and savored it before slamming the bottle back down, wiping his mouth roughly on the back of his sleeve. Satisfied, he went back to the counter and waited pensively for the dinner rush to start.

* * *

"He was lying," Monk said with certainty as he departed the restaurant.

"About what?" Sharona asked skeptically, half-eaten cannoli in hand.

"The wine bottle," Monk answered. "That shelf never had any red wine on it. That was a collection of Pinot Grigio, a _white _ wine from Veneto—"

"What're you gonna do, have them arrest him because his wine collection didn't match?" Sharona rolled her eyes.

"Maybe," Monk gave a one-armed shrug, "But there was something else, too. Those wines were arranged chronologically. The first was made in 1990, the second in '92, the third in '94, and so on, all the way up to 2000. The missing bottle should have been from 1998, not 1986."

"So? He doesn't have to go around _organizing _ every little thing; he's not you," Sharona dismissed the theory, reaching for a second pastry. Her boss looked disapprovingly at her as she ravenously dug into it. "_What_?" she asked defensively.

"That one was mine."

"You want it?" Sharona held the remnants of the dessert up to her boss's face.

"No!" Monk backed away spastically. "No _thank you,_" he added with emphasis, a little too late.

Sharona shrugged and took another bite.

"You're going to spoil your appetite," Adrian protested lamely.

"Who are you, my mother?"

"But I thought you were on a diet," he answered, confused.

She stopped and wheeled around, looking at her boss disgustedly. She had, in fact, been on a diet up until about a minute and a half ago—she'd never actually _told_ him about it. But he knew; of _course _ he knew. Goddamn those freakish powers of observation.

"Mind your own business," she snapped, then angrily licked the last of the cheese filling off the back of her thumb. "Get in the car."

"Don't—"

"Get in the car, Adrian," she pointed sharply to the sickly-green automobile.

They got into the car, and not another word was uttered on the subject of cannolis.

"We should have that list of names checked out. I don't trust him," Monk told her once they'd pulled onto the main road.

"Should I be surprised?"

"Yes—no. Maybe. Anyway, you probably shouldn't talk to him anymore. You know," he told her apprehensively, fiddling with the contents of the glove compartment.

"Why would I? If you think I'm that desperate for the free food, maybe you oughta pay me more," Sharona said, almost serious. "Don't touch that," she added automatically.

"Oh, come on, I was _there _the whole time. He was flirting with you," Monk said in a hushed tone, as if 'flirting' were something inexplicably dirty.

"Yeah, like _you'd_ know the first thing about flirting," Sharona snorted.

"You were definitely flirting," he reiterated, sounding ill.

"I was being _nice _ to him, his father just died. It's called common courtesy; you should try it sometime," Sharona gave him a sideways glance as she maneuvered the car into the turning lane.

"But that's another thing," Monk held up his hands to prevent too much of the glove compartment's contents from spilling sideways onto the floor. "He didn't seem bothered by his father's death at all. He was _happy_," the detective added, puzzled over the whole incident.

"Well, he was kind of manic, I'll give you that," Sharona gave in and agreed with him on something. Claus Glockner was definitely out there. Still, it didn't stop her mind from drifting back to his offer, or the image of pockets overflowing with tips.

* * *

The evening came and went, and all too soon, Sharona found herself back at the police station the next day.

Getting Claus Glockner's list of restaurant patrons checked out was a monotonous process, especially when no one really seemed to think it was worth checking in the first place. Dr. Dennis Glockner had indeed had many enemies in his lifetime, and Stottlemeyer and his underlings were having a hard enough time sorting through _them _ to worry about any additional suspects.

While Monk paced all over the place, straightening everything in his path, Sharona had seated herself comfortably cross-legged on top of a desk—Randy Disher's desk, to be exact. Currently, Disher was hunched over a file folder containing information regarding one of the dead doctor's lawsuits. Strangely enough, the Lieutenant hadn't even so much as acknowledged her presence. He'd been uncharacteristically quiet the whole day, now that Sharona thought about it. And sure, most days she'd do anything just to get him to shut up—but today she was incredibly bored, she decided. So bored, she might actually start talking to him of her own free will.

Randy coughed without covering his mouth, something Monk and his assistant both found to be rather gross. The latter handed him a tissue, hoping he'd take a hint and use it. Disher looked up blearily and took it. His eyes had sort of a glazed-over look to them, his complexion was pale, and the area above his top lip looked raw, like he'd been blowing his nose a little too often.

"Randy, you look _terrible._ I mean—even more than usual," Sharona noticed out loud, fishing for some sort of response.

"Oh, good, I always wanted a paperweight that insults me while I'm working," Randy sniffed irritably. Sharona smiled a little in spite of herself.

"Well, now I know what to get you for your birthday," she leaned back, glimpsing the page the Lieutenant was reading. No wonder he looked ill—it was all legal jargon. What she gathered from skimming it, though, was that _some_one had sued Dr. Glockner for more money than she'd probably ever make in her lifetime, and the proceedings had been pretty nasty business.

"Malpractice suit, huh? Those can get pretty ugly. I used to see a lot of them back when I worked at the hospital," she continued knowingly. "So you think someone who lost out on a lawsuit killed Dr. Glockner for revenge?"

"That's the idea," Randy answered sullenly.

"So who's this?" Sharona tugged at the folder with her fingertips. "Anyone I know?" she joked.

Randy rubbed his nose, looking increasingly miserable with each passing second. "No idea. There's a whole file cabinet drawer full of these. They all start to look the same after about…twelve hours or so," he said apathetically, punctuating the thought with a formidable sneeze. (Far across the room, Adrian flinched.)

"What's wrong with you today, anyway?" Sharona looked towards Randy stanchly. "You got a cold or something?"

"I dunno. Maybe I'm allergic to annoying people," he retorted weakly.

Sharona clicked her tongue. "Come here," she said disdainfully, motioning the Lieutenant forward and briefly laying the palm of her hand across his forehead. "Yeah, you're running a fever," she confirmed, a little concerned. "You're really burning up."

"Thanks for clearing that up," the Lieutenant mumbled crankily. He buried his head behind the cover of the open folder, hiding his embarrassment. Sharona lowered it away from Randy's visage, much to his annoyance.

"Now—not that I don't wanna ask you this _every _ day, but—why couldn't you just stay home? You can't work. You can't even_ pretend_ to work."

"Can't stay home; I used up all my sick days touring with my band," the Lieutenant answered. "I don't regret it," he added proudly, as though it might impress her somehow.

"Yeah, and it did wonders for your singing career," Sharona regarded the Lieutenant sarcastically. After a second, though, she softened a little. "I got some Tylenol in my bag. You can have them if you ask me nicely," She said deliberately, swinging her feet over the side of the desk.

"Chewables?" Randy looked at her directly this time, a glint of hope in his widened, glassy eyes.

Sharona didn't have to vocalize her reply; she just turned around and fixed him with a look that said '_You've _got _to be kidding me_.' Disher's face sunk, and the two of them resumed ignoring each other posthaste.

Elsewhere in the room, Monk and Stottlemeyer were conversing animatedly.

"For the _third _ time, Monk, we checked the whole damn list. The son has a rock-solid alibi; that's all there is to it. He was in the restaurant _all night _ the night his father was killed. I'm sorry if it didn't work out the way you wanted it to this time, but that's life," the Captain said, a little perturbed, as he folded up Claus Glockner's list of customers and stuffed it into Monk's front pocket. (Running on only three hours of sleep generally wasn't very conducive to dealing with Monk—Leeland had learned that one a long time ago.)

"I know. I know," Monk teetered a little, his equilibrium completely thrown off by the crinkly piece of paper. "But did you—"

"In alphabetical order, yes," Stottlemeyer said exhaustedly. "Just like you wanted."

Monk inhaled through his teeth a little, dissatisfied. "Yeah, maybe that wasn't such a good idea. I think you should try again…in chronological order. That would probably be best."

"Does it _really _ matter?" the Captain threw up his arms in exasperation.

"It does to me," Monk replied unhappily.

Sharona slid off the desk and stepped in with a haphazard attempt at changing the subject. "Hey, it's getting late, maybe you two should talk about this later. We still gotta go pick up those art supplies for Benjy, remember?" she tried, sternly eyeballing her boss. "You promised," she added, chin lowered and eyebrows raised.

"I promised," Monk re-relayed the information to Stottlemeyer. "But Captain—the list—if you could just—"

Stottlemeyer cut him off. "You see this, Monk?" He held up a file folder with a flourish. "_This_ lady wrote Dr. Glockner sixteen threatening emails over the last two-and-a-half years because he botched her daughter's nosejob. And _this _ guy," he continued, holding up another, "Was caught throwing rocks at Dr. Glockner's summer home after he lost a lawsuit against him last May. And what did _your_ guy do? Forget to send his dad a birthday card?" the Captain shook his head and chuckled ironically.

"And he spilled that bottle of red wine," Sharona added, shrugging. Sure, it didn't seem to mean anything to anybody, but it apparently meant something to Adrian—she figured she'd throw it out there just in case.

"…Right, there was that," Monk supplied seriously as he gingerly touched the tip of a desk lamp. "And the witness—"

"—was a little girl with an overactive imagination," the Captain interrupted, obviously not sold. "Look, I don't have time for this," he said as he mopped his brow with the side of his hand. "I am up to my _ears_ in paperwork right now. If you want to start cracking open file folders like the rest of us here on Planet Earth, great. But other than that, there's really nothing for you to do here right now. I'll call you if anything else comes up," he shrugged resignedly. "Okay?"

"That's fine," Sharona said sharply as Stottlemeyer turned and left. She really couldn't back her boss up on this one; his accusations against Claus Glockner were pretty absurd—but getting the brush-off from the Captain like this still really teed her off.

"…I should ask him one more time. He might change his mind," Monk suggested with a note of desperation.

"Forget it," Sharona told him firmly, raising up a hand to stop him as he started in the direction of the Captain's office. "He's in no mood, and neither am I. I mean, come on, you've _got_ta get off this—this thing, this fixation with the son; it's getting us _no_where."

"He has a motive," Monk objected. "He's going to inherit all of his father's property."

"Yeah, and all of his father's problems, too," Sharona reminded him as she hastily grabbed her jacket off a hook and slipped into it. "You heard the Captain, Dennis Glockner had crazy people coming around his place _constantly_. And believe me, it's bad enough having to put up with _one _ crazy person—but fifty or sixty of 'em? It's not worth it," she reasoned as she hurried Adrian toward the front door.

"Hey, Monk, wait up a second," a congested voice sounded dully down the hall. Randy caught up to him, still seeming eager despite the sickness. "You know, you might not be wrong," he told Monk confidentially, "I have a theory. Claus Glockner could still be the guy." He sniffed loudly.

"Well, that's very nice, I'm glad you agree," Monk said rapidly, walking a little faster and snapping for a wipe to shield his face from the sickly Lieutenant. He couldn't quite look Randy in the face. Actually, he couldn't really look at Randy at all. "We really have to be going—now—right now."

"Don't you want to hear what the theory is?" Disher knitted his brow.

"Not really, no," Monk answered honestly. "But I _would_ appreciate it if you could just…back away…maybe ten or twenty feet. Fifty. How about fifty feet, that's a good distance. You know what? Make it an even hundred," he smiled nervously.

"Oh, right. Sorry 'bout that," Disher responded, jogging off to the other side of the room.

Just as Monk and his slightly agitated assistant turned around to leave once more, Sharona's cell phone rang. She dug it out of her purse hurriedly.

"Hello?" she answered.

"Hi, it's Disher again," a familiar—albeit slightly stuffier than usual—voice came through on the other end. "Could you put Monk on speakerphone?"

"How did you get this number?" Sharona asked suspiciously, shooting the Lieutenant a dangerous look from across the room.

"Uh…lucky guess?" Randy replied stupidly.

Sharona scoffed and slapped the phone (and an extra wipe _for_ the phone) into her boss's hand. "It's for you."

Monk gave the phone a thorough cleansing and held it as close to his ear as he could stand—a good four or five inches away—while Sharona dismissed herself, promising to be back in a minute.

"Hello? Monk? You there?" Randy badgered.

"Yes, hello, it's me—Adrian…Monk." the detective responded uncomfortably.

"Yeah, cool, okay," Randy began, ready to launch into a fantastic speech—just as soon as he'd finished sneezing two or three times. "So here's what I was thinking. What if Glockner has an evil twin?"

"An evil twin. Yeah, that's…that's good," Monk feigned interest, watching the sky outside. It looked like it was about to start raining again.

"I know, right?" Randy continued, delighted. "So here's how it could've happened—while Glockner was working at his restaurant, his evil twin went out and killed the father, see, and then—" at that moment there was a muffled crackling sond, accompanied by a muted "_Hey!"_

"Hello?" Monk said into the receiver, confused. He turned around and peeked at Disher's desk, where Randy and Sharona were grappling for the phone.

The next voice he heard was hers. "Hang up, Adrian, he's wasting my minutes," she said. Monk complied without a second thought.

Meanwhile, Sharona was flipping through the menus on Disher's cell at lightning speed. "You put me on speed dial?" she questioned, looking askance at Randy.

"Must've been an accident," the Lieutenant mumbled, suddenly very interested in his magnetic paper clip holder.

"Well, I'm sure it won't happen again," Sharona said concisely as she deleted her personal cell number from his contacts list. "Here you go." She snapped the phone shut and laid it unceremoniously on Disher's desk, then stood up straight, ready to leave…but she didn't. Something had caught her attention: a clump of raised, blistery bumps clustered just under Disher's ear. She stared at it for a few seconds.

"What?" the Lieutenant asked indignantly as he scratched the very spot she'd been looking at.

Sharona's face broke into a grin. "Nothing," she said cheerily, "Nothing at all. Have a great day, Lieutenant."

And she turned around, met Adrian at the end of the hall, and left the building, still smiling.

"What's so funny?" her boss asked her, bewildered.

Once again, she replied that it was nothing. She couldn't tell Adrian; he'd have a conniption, but her suspicions were now one hundred percent confirmed. And somehow, the thought of it just struck her as funny.

Randy Disher had chicken pox.

* * *

**Return of the Revenge of the Post-Chapter Author's note, Part III:** Phew! Like I said, needlessly long. And a little too rambly, but I wasn't sure where to cut, so this is the result. (When I write, I have all the facts of the case and the order in which things need to happen already in mind, but the characters' reactions and conversations come out and surprise me while I'm in the process. Which may or may not explain their incessant rambling.) It's my longest chapter thus far at almost 8,000 words, but it still took me _way_ longer than it should have—I'll chalk that up to school and work though. Mid-terms are fast approaching, too, so future chapters might trickle out a little slower than you and I _both _ would like. Sorry in advance!

So if you're confused, the same building that's a Thai restaurant in **Universe A** is an Italian restaurant on **Universe B**. So there's only one restaurant per story…I guess I made the title of this piece misleading. Har har. I always bold the names of the universes. It makes it more **dramatic**, or something.

Um…what else. You know I get almost all my suspects' and witnesses' names from a random name generator I found on Google? It even makes up a fake email address and social security number for 'em and all, even though I really have no use for those. Try it sometime, it's fun as heck.

So hey, while I'm here, I'm gonna do some shoutouts. Oh yes indeedy.

First one goes to **Kelo**, thanks for offering to take a look at the crap I write every once in a while. :D

Next, to my sister,**SuperGrapePie**, thanks for the funny voices.

To **MONKrules**, thanks for being my first review. A story without reviews is like a lake without water, _nes pas_?

To **Ann Peek**, thanks for taking an interest! A grown man showing up at a little girl's birthday party might be a little weird, but I _can _ promise you that we haven't quite seen the last of Patti Mendez. :D

To **Christobob**…er, Bob Wright. Two Adrian Monks at the same time? I dunno if the world's ready for that much sanitation. Heh heh. :P Glad you like the mystery, too, since you write so many of 'em.

To **agtchill13**, thanks for reviewing so extensively! You know I love it. For the record, no actual cats were harmed in the making of this fanfic.

To **Lost In A Dark Wood** (phew! Can I call ya Losty?) Pshaw, I'm still blushing. Glad you like my weird-ass idea. I dunno if it's _really_ a first, though. You ever seen the episode of Scrubs called My Butterfly? (It's one of my favorites. Ahaha.)

To **Hardhead**, glad you got hooked in! I'll try not to disappoint. :D I'm just curious to see if anyone can solve the mystery before Monk does. Heh.

Well, that's about it then! (Although I'll probably still be nitpicking at typos and formatting errors for weeks, so y'know.)

Until Chapter 4. I wish you love, luck, happiness, and lots of delicious snacks.


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